Florida

By Jaimy de Vries

After our cold Alaska adventure we went to the warm and tourist side of the States: Florida! It was on our way to Mexico and we decided to make a long transit in Orlando. A nice way to get a adjusted to the warm climate of central America. There are lots of things to do in Florida besides the nice weather, beaches and swimming pools. There are many big attraction parks and the nature & wildlife is quite unique. A week was not enough in Florida!

A warm cloud

When stepping out of the airport you feel a big cloud of tropical heat. Warm and humid. Our sunglasses were fogging up. Around August average temperatures are between 30-35 degrees (85-95 Fahrenheit) and there is not much wind to help you cool off. What will help are the daily rain showers and thunder that usually starts late in the afternoon and goes on quite a while.

Kissimmee

We arrived early in Orlando and were tired of the flight. And we didn’t had much sleep because we went back in time 4 hours. We went straight to our Airbnb in Kissimmee (a town next to Orlando) and decided to take a nap. Well I thought it was a nap. When I woke up I looked at my phone and it was 11 am. Nice time to get out of bed and do something today I thought. But it turned out this was our old time, it was already 3 pm. That means I slept full 8 hours! Luckily we still had some time for grocery shopping and doing some research and planning for our stay here in Orlando.

The next day we walked to old town Kissimmee, and attraction park you can enter for free but where you need to pay for rides. It was so quiet when we entered the park. Maybe because it was so hot at daytime? We decided to watch a magic show what Jaron of course really liked and it’s out of the sun. It was a good show! Afterwards we went back to our Airbnb and went for a swim at the community swimming pool. That is just so nice here in Florida. You have many gated communities that shares and maintain garden areas that usually has a swimming pool too. We saw lots of families and kids coming here too for a swim.

Weather contrast in Florida

Community swimming pool

Amuse me park

Of course you can’t leave Orlando without a visit to one of the attraction parks. Besides our main reason to visit Orlando was Disney. Because Disney offers mostly quiet attractions, we wanted some more thrilling attractions too. So we went to Universal. Universal has 3 parks and we decided to go to Adventure Island. The best park out of three if we must believe the locals. It surely was amazing! We went the full day, before opening time till watching the lightshow at the Harry Potter castle. An attraction park that has well thought attractions and how they dress up everything is what makes walking into the park an experience. Even when your waiting in a line they make sure you’ll be entertained. And the nice thing is, you don’t have to wait in the burning sun: the waiting lines are inside

We were surprised every time. By the best rollercoaster I’ve ever been in: VelociCoaster – by the surprise elements of the Hagrid coaster and by the water tunnel at Poseidon’s furry. There were lots of fun attractions that created a big smile on our face, like the spiderman ride. And the water attractions are not too compare with the ones we have back home in Europe. Here you get wet, soaking soaking wet, like in the Popeye attraction. But getting wet to cool off is also a necessity here in Orlando where its extremely hot. We were cooled down for quite some while. When you’re at the park it feels like you’re really at that place. Jurassic park is a jungle full of real-like Dino’s. You can even go on the picture with a raptor that looks so real. Or walking at Hogwarts street with shops where you can buy a wand and do magic spells with it.

Hulk coaster

A life-like raptor at VelociCoaster

Wand shop at Hogwarts street

With the Harry Potter castle

Together!

Gryffindor!

The night light show

Magic!

There it was, the moment we’ve been waiting for and why we actually came to Orlando: Disney world! We were welcomed by the staff. They were all so happy and enthusiastic what made us even more happy. We needed to take a monorail to Magic Kingdom. Must be big you think? Well this area is huge! Disney has 4 parks In Orlando, more resorts and its own highway system. It’s like an own city.

Finally we entered the park through the main street with cute shops and on the end of the street the Disney castle. We were welcomed by a show at the castle and afterwards we ran to our first attraction. Early in the morning the lines are not that bad and we want to see as much attractions as possible. So we ran! At the end of the day we’ve seen all the attractions we wanted to see! Riding in the dark galaxy at Space Mountain, fighting for the highest score at buzz lightyear (I won hehe!), taking back in time of technology at the carousel of progress, got wet at splash mountain, saw real-like figures at Pirates of the Caribbean and had fun at Big Thunder mountain. We also enjoyed the parades. The parades were great, good actors, costumes and decor. And that is were Disney shines in. They know how to give a good show!

The weather was really hot and we needed to wait outside for a while in the burning sun at some attractions. This was quite hard sometimes. Universal in comparison did this much better: lines inside buildings with air-conditioning and more water attractions (where you get really wet). But a nice rain and thunderstorm helped us cool off. We waited in the evening for the firework show. It was at 9 pm. And it was worth the wait! I had goosebumps the whole show and even let a tear because it was just so pretty and powerful. Definitely my number one thing to do in Magic Kingdom!

Ulf from Frozen

Mickey & Minnie mouse at parade

Beauty & the beast at parade

Carousel of progress

Pirates of the Caribbean

smile!

Ofc a little photoshoot with the castle

Amazing light and firework show in the evening

Crystal river

One of the coolest things to do in Florida besides the attractions parks is kayaking. We went to Crystal River with Crystal River Kayak Company. They were super friendly and helpful. In just a couple of minutes we were in the water. I was surprised by how beautiful the water is. It’s quite shallow, but there is so much fish, seagrass, and different colors of water (blue to green) to see. In less than 10 minutes we were at the three sister spring, the place to be! We can understand why: it’s a hidden treasure with beautiful crystal clear water and it’s surround by mangroves. The other thing you’re surrounded with are swimmers and snorkelers splashing water. But still it was possible to find a quiet spot and lay your kayak here to take a plunge yourself. The water is nice and fresh. But although its name, there is more to it than crystal clear

water. This place is mostly known for the manatees. Between November and March you’ll be surrounded by them. They come here in the winter because the temperatures remain constant throughout the year and the sea is starting to cool off. But you need to be very lucky to see one the other months (April-October), especially with lots of tourist around in the busy summer months. We didn’t expect to see Manatee. But there were plenty other things to see: I saw a crab, tropical fish, lots of seagrass and a big grey rock. Grey rock? Wait.. it’s moving!! Damn a manatee!! Its is so big!! I got a quick snap off him but he was gone quite fast. We saw him while we were kayaking back. A good way to end our trip. Thanks Crystal River Kayak Company!

To see a manatee was on my bucket list. I just love these big funny looking, kind and humble water mammals. There are different types of Manatees, these are the West Indian manatees. But you also have manatees in the Amazon, in Africa and some parts of Asia. Manatees can be found in shallow, slow-moving rivers, estuaries, saltwater bays, canals, and coastal areas — particularly where seagrass beds or freshwater vegetation flourish. The average adult manatee is about 3 meters (10 feet) long and weight between 350-550 kg (800-1200 pounds). Most of their time is spent eating sea grass, resting, and traveling. In the Netherlands we call them sea cows, because well…. they kinda look like a cow and they’re eating sea grass. I can see the resembles. It’s not hard to understand why I like them so much.

A swampy ride

We went on a boat tour through the swamp with Wild Willy’s Airboat adventure. The tour was in one word: awesome! Just the power of the motor blazing behind you and the boat crossing through the swamp. Sometimes it looked like we were cruising on grass ..so much water plants. There was also many wildlife, especially birds. We saw White Ibis, great Egret, Sandhill Crane, Hawks, Great Blue Herons, Limpkin, Gallinule… and those are just a couple of what we’ve seen. But we didn’t come for the

birds, we wanted to see alligators. And yes we did!! We haven’t seen one, but four. One had baby alligators too, probably around eight. I was surprised, baby alligators actually look like snakes in the water: black with yellow stripes. At the end we could hold an alligator. That was so cool! It felt really strange touching an alligator. It was not wet or slimy, but still it felt quite soft. I was thinking about it for a while, what does it feel like? …Well I found the answer: soft leather.